In June 2017, Dr. Ivan Sascha Sheehan – Associate Professor of Public and International Affairs – authored two prominent op-eds on U.S. policy in the Middle East. Dr. Sheehan’s scholarship on regime change and the Iranian opposition has been influential in shaping Washington’s thinking on the potential for a democratic transition in Iran.

The articles, which were shared thousands of times via social media and circulated in Washington’s policy community, raised themes that were subsequently picked up by prominent U.S. officials at international meetings during Summer 2017. Dr. Sheehan has been busy in June and July with writing, consulting, and participation in international forums. Learn more about a recent keynote address he delivered at a think-tank in Paris and stay tuned for updates on Dr. Sheehan’s involvement in a prominent U.S. delegation that traveled to Europe for the largest gathering for democracy in Iran, additional op-eds, and more.

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Time Magazine notes that the film “traces how the bloody crackdown on youth dissent in March 2011 metastasized into the intractable conflict that today has left an estimated 500,000 dead and millions uprooted.”

“Syria became a civil war in response to the violence of the government; eventually Iran got involved through Hezbollah to support the Assad regime. The Kurds got involved. Turkey got involved. The Arab Gulf states got involved. Eventually all the world powers and all the regional powers had some investment in the war in Syria and in many cases were actively involved in the fighting.”

Sebastian Junger is an Academy-Award nominated filmmaker and New York Times No. 1 best-selling author of books including War and Tribe. As an award-winning journalist, a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, and a special correspondent at ABC News, he has covered major international news stories around the world and has received both a National Magazine Award and a Peabody Award. Nick Quested is executive director and owner of Goldcrest Films, one of the world’s premiere documentary brands. He has earned two Emmys for his work.

This is the second film premiere for which Dr. Sheehan has been commissioned by National Geographic Channel. To contact him with media inquries or book him for special events, please visit

“In the 2017 contest Iranians have again been denied an opportunity to choose from those who represent a meaningful departure from the status quo, they have been denied access to information from credible news outlets, and journalists, activists, and scholars have been denied basic freedoms widely considered staples of liberal democracy…

The Iranian regime’s rogue status and lack of legitimacy will leave whomever emerges on Friday vulnerable to a Persian Spring. As one prominent former U.S. official at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies concluded in the Wall Street Journal: History contradicts the dream of Iranian moderation so long as the existing regime is left intact.”

Dr. Ivan Sascha Sheehan – Associate Professor of Public and International Affairs – celebrated the Persian New Year at the historic Willard Intercontinental Hotel in Washington, D.C. on March 24, 2017. Learn more about Dr. Sheehan’s scholarship on contemporary Middle East topics here and follow his policy-oriented writing throughout this site.

Distinguished guests for the Nowruz celebration included General James T. Conway, former Commandant of the Marine Corps, Ambassador Robert Joseph, former Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, Ambassador Marc Ginsberg, former United States Ambassador to Morocco, Ambassador Lincoln P. Bloomfield Jr., former Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs, and Ambassador P.J. Crowley, Former Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs.